Squirrels and raccoons get the most publicity when it comes to substation outages. But a series of recent snake outages shows that legless crawlers also do their fair share of damage:
- More than 22,000 people in Jacksonville, FL, were left without power when a red rat snake crawled into a substation.
- A snake in Georgia set off a chain reaction when it entered and damaged one substation and caused a parallel outage at another.
- A Colorado outage affected 6,500 people across four towns. The cause: a snake that found its way into a fenced-in substation. (Chain link? Not an effective barrier against snakes …)
Why the snake surge? Snakes seek out eggs in birds’ nests that are often found in substations. They also seek warmth after sundown. And, they’re small enough to sneak through narrow gaps. Solution: TransGard fencing with snake guards: durable mesh construction that prevents incursion from snakes as small as ¼” in diameter. Learn more here.